The plays written about AIDS in the past dozen years form a radical canon establishing gay men as the locus for public attention. These plays have been all but silent in their representation of women with AIDS. This article examines the marginalized women in early plays such as The Normal Heart and As Is, and the women more central to later plays such as The Baltimore Waltz, Before It Hits Home, and Patient A. It foregrounds some of the most problematic (...) issues surrounding the AIDS virus: the perception of women as vectors of disease for men and unborn children, the insistent representation of women as mothers and caregivers, and the denial of patterns of abuse, sexual exploitation, and poverty which contribute to the marginalization of woman and people of color. (shrink)

Base of the pyramid ventures seek to create “mutual value” for themselves and poor communities, but often use business models unadapted for the BoP context, and have been less successful than hoped. Sustainable business models’ multi-stakeholder lens offers a promising alternative path to mutual value, but BoP-based SBM studies are scarce. This single case study explores whether and how SBM characteristics manifest in the business model and value outcomes of Habi, a Manila footwear company successfully creating mutual value with BoP (...) suppliers. We find SBM characteristics underpin Habi’s dual-structure business model and success in four ways: viewing profits as a tool for community development resulted in designing both product and business model around community strengths; understanding communities as systems helped Habi address the complexities of poverty; balancing short-term business needs with a long-term, slow-growth approach led to their choice of investors; and implementing community value capture mechanisms ensured enduring community benefit. (shrink)

Background Retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers to unreliable material and other problems in the published scientific and scholarly record. Retracted publications generally remain visible and searchable, but the intention of retraction is to mark them as “removed” from the citable record of scholarship. However, in practice, some retracted articles continue to be treated by researchers and the public as valid content as they are often unaware of the retraction. Research over the past decade has identified a number of (...) factors contributing to the unintentional spread of retracted research. The goal of the Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: Shaping a Research and Implementation Agenda (RISRS) project was to develop an actionable agenda for reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science. This included identifying how retraction status could be more thoroughly disseminated, and determining what actions are feasible and relevant for particular stakeholders who play a role in the distribution of knowledge. -/- Methods These recommendations were developed as part of a year-long process that included a scoping review of empirical literature and successive rounds of stakeholder consultation, culminating in a three-part online workshop that brought together a diverse body of 65 stakeholders in October–November 2020 to engage in collaborative problem solving and dialogue. Stakeholders held roles such as publishers, editors, researchers, librarians, standards developers, funding program officers, and technologists and worked for institutions such as universities, governmental agencies, funding organizations, publishing houses, libraries, standards organizations, and technology providers. Workshop discussions were seeded by materials derived from stakeholder interviews (N = 47) and short original discussion pieces contributed by stakeholders. The online workshop resulted in a set of recommendations to address the complexities of retracted research throughout the scholarly communications ecosystem. -/- Results The RISRS recommendations are: (1) Develop a systematic cross-industry approach to ensure the public availability of consistent, standardized, interoperable, and timely information about retractions; (2) Recommend a taxonomy of retraction categories/classifications and corresponding retraction metadata that can be adopted by all stakeholders; (3) Develop best practices for coordinating the retraction process to enable timely, fair, unbiased outcomes; and (4) Educate stakeholders about pre- and post-publication stewardship, including retraction and correction of the scholarly record. -/- Conclusions Our stakeholder engagement study led to 4 recommendations to address inadvertent citation of retracted research, and formation of a working group to develop the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CORREC) Recommended Practice. Further work will be needed to determine how well retractions are currently documented, how retraction of code and datasets impacts related publications, and to identify if retraction metadata (fails to) propagate. Outcomes of all this work should lead to ensuring retracted papers are never cited without awareness of the retraction, and that, in public fora outside of science, retracted papers are not treated as valid scientific outputs. (shrink)

I revisit my earlier arguments for the (trivial) inconsistency of natural languages, and take up the objection that no such argument can be established on the basis of surface usage. I respond with the evidential centrality of surface usage: the ways it can and can't be undercut by linguistic science. Then some important ramifications of having an inconsistent natural language are explored: (1) the temptation to engage in illegitimate reductio reasoning, (2) the breakdown of the knowledge idiom (because its facticity (...) isn't comfortable with every sentence being true and false). Restoring the utility of the knowledge idiom motivates regimentation - the consistentist reinterpretation of natural language inferences (as they occur in real time). It's then sketched how to give the semantics of a natural language despite its inconsistency: Necessary and sufficient truth conditions are dropped in favor of necessary truth conditions and sufficient truth conditions. (shrink)

This study explored the influence of personal values on destructive leader behavior. Student participants completed a managerial assessment center that presented them with ambiguous leadership decisions and problems. Destructive behavior was defined as harming organizational members or striving for short-term gains over long-term organizational goals. Results revealed that individuals with self-enhancement values were more destructive than individuals with self-transcendence values were, with the core values of power (self-enhancement) and universalism (self-transcendence) being most influential. Results also showed that individuals defined and (...) structured leadership problems in a manner that reflected their value systems, which in turn affected the problem solutions they generated. (shrink)

This book offers an in-depth analysis of the cognitive and ethical role of emotion, particularly empathy, in medical practice. The author explains how doctors can use empathy in diagnosing and treating patients without jeopardizing their objectivity or projecting their own values on to patients.

I revisit my earlier arguments for the (trivial) inconsistency of natural languages, and take up the objection that no such argument can be established on the basis of surface usage. I respond with the evidential centrality of surface usage: the ways it can and can't be undercut by linguistic science. Then some important ramifications of having an inconsistent natural language are explored: (1) the temptation to engage in illegitimate reductio reasoning, (2) the breakdown of the knowledge idiom (because its facticity (...) isn't comfortable with every sentence being true and false). Restoring the utility of the knowledge idiom motivates regimentation—the consistentist reinterpretation of natural language inferences (as they occur in real time). It's then sketched how to give the semantics of a natural language despite its inconsistency: Necessary and sufficient truth conditions are dropped in favor of necessary truth conditions and sufficient truth conditions. (shrink)

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science is a fascinating study of the bounds between science and language: in what sense, and of what, does science provide knowledge? Is science an instrument only distantly related to what's real? Can the language of science be used to adequately describe the truth? In this book, Jody Azzouni investigates the technology of science - the actual forging and exploiting of causal links, between ourselves and what we endeavor to know and understand. Here can (...) be found one of the earliest severely careful analyses of Putnam's notorious permutation argument, as well as the responses to it by David Lewis and Michael Devitt, among others. The ways in which the references of noun phrases transcend our capacities to fix reference by human means (e.g. causation) are shown and the consequences of this are drawn clearly. (shrink)

All sides in the recent debates over the Quine‐Putnam Indispensability thesis presuppose Quine's criterion for determining what a discourse is ontologically committed to. I subject the criterion to scrutiny, especially in regard to the available competitor‐criteria, asking what means of evaluation there are for comparing alternative criteria against each other. Finding none, the paper concludes that ontological questions, in a certain sense, are philosophically indeterminate.

_Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science_ is a fascinating study of the bounds between science and language: in what sense, and of what, does science provide knowledge? Is science an instrument only distantly related to what's real? Can the language of science be used to adequately describe the truth? In this book, Jodi Azziouni investigates the technology of science - the actual forging and exploiting of causal links, between ourselves and what we endeavor to know and understand.

Ask a philosopher what a proof is, and you’re likely to get an answer hii empaszng one or another regimentationl of that notion in terms of a finite sequence of formalized statements, each of which is either an axiom or is derived from an axiom by certain inference rules. (Wecan call this the formal conception of proof) Ask a mathematician what a proof is, and you will rbbl poay get a different-looking answer. Instead of stressing a partic- l uar regimented (...) notion of proof, the answer the mathematician will give ilikl.. (shrink)

Times of crisis bring about increased demands on businesses as shortages, or unexpected but significant, business costs are encountered. Passing on such costs to consumers is a challenge. When faced with a retail price increase, consumers may rely on cues as to the motive behind the increase. Such cues can raise suspicion of alternative motive (e. g., taking advantage of the consumer) affecting consumers' judgments of price fairness. This research investigates two triggers of suspicion: salience of alternative motives, and behavior (...) judged to be out-of-character for the business. Results of the two studies within crisis contexts indicate that suspicion is created when alternative motives are salient and when a retailer acts out-of-character. Multiple group analyses revealed that suspicion induced negative affect and subsequent perceptions of price fairness. When suspicion was present, more negative feelings toward the retailer and judgments of price unfairness resulted. (shrink)

In recent years, autopoietic enactivism has been used to address persistent conceptual problems in psychiatry, such as the problem of demarcating disorder, that other models thus far have failed to overcome. There appear to be three main enactive accounts of psychopathology with subtle, although not incompatible, differences: Maiesecharacterizes disorder as distinct disruptions in autonomy and agency; Nielsen characterizes disorder as behaviors that relevantly conflict with the functional norms of an individual; De Haan emphasizes patterns of disordered sense-making, that are transformed (...) through the existential dimension. Given that these accounts are intended to provide not only an ontologically richer account of psychopathology but also reduce the stigma experienced by individuals with mental disorders by accounting for lived experience, a critical analysis of these approaches is needed. I will provide a problematization of enactive accounts of mental disorder, showing that this particular framework does not, as it stands, necessarily reduce the harm and suffering experienced by individuals with mental disorder because of its ontological openness; enactivism leaves much to be interpreted and applied by the clinician (or patient) such that practical and ethical problems in its use arise. (shrink)

Proactive policing strategies produce a range of harms to African Americans in poor urban communities. We know little, however, about how aggressive policing is experienced across gender by adolescents in these neighborhoods. The authors argue that important insights can be gained by examining the perspectives of African American youths and draw from in-depth interviews with youths in St. Louis, Missouri, to investigate how gender shapes interactions with the police. The comparative analysis reveals important gendered facets of African American adolescents' experiences (...) with and expectations of law enforcement. Young men described being treated routinely as suspects regardless of their involvement in delinquency and also reported police violence. Young women typically described being stopped for curfew violations but also expressed concerns about police sexual misconduct. This study highlights the differential harms of urban policing for African American young women and men and highlights the need for systematic attention to the intersections of race and gender in research on criminal justice practices. (shrink)

Is there progress in philosophy? If so, how much? Philosophers have recently argued for a wide range of answers to these questions, from the view that there is no progress whatsoever to the view that philosophy has provided answers to all the big philosophical questions. However, these views are difficult to compare and evaluate, because they rest on very different assumptions about the conditions under which philosophy would make progress. This paper looks to the comparatively mature debate about scientific progress (...) for inspiration on how to formulate four distinct accounts of philosophical progress, in terms of truthlikeness, problem-solving, knowledge, and understanding. Equally importantly, the paper outlines a common framework for how to understand and evaluate these accounts. We distill a series of lessons from this exercise, to help pave the way for a more fruitful discussion about philosophical progress in the future. (shrink)

A background assumption of this paper is that the repertoire of inference schemes available to humanity is not fixed, but subject to change as new schemes are invented or refined and as old ones are obsolesced or abandoned. This is particularly visible in areas like health and environmental sciences, where enormous societal investment has been made in finding ways to reach more dependable conclusions. Computational modeling of argumentation, at least for the discourse in expert fields, will require the possibility of (...) modeling change in a stock of schemes that may be applied to generate conclusions from data. We examine Randomized Clinical Trial, an inference scheme established within medical science in the mid-20th Century, and show that its successful defense by means of practical reasoning allowed for its black-boxing as an inference scheme that generates (and warrants belief in) conclusions about the effects of medical treatments. Modeling the use of a scheme is well-understood; here we focus on modeling how the scheme comes to be established so that it is available for use. (shrink)

Numbers -- Hallucinations -- Fictions -- Scientific languages, ontology, and truth -- Truth conditions and semantics.

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

What in our theoretical pronouncements commits us to objects? The Quinean standard for ontological commitment involves (nearly enough) commitments when we utter “there is” or “there are” statements without hope of eliminating these by paraphrase. Coupled with the indispensability of the truth of applied mathematical doctrine, the result is that the ontologically hard-nosed scientist is a Platonist—haplessly commited to abstracta. In this book Azzouni offers a way around the Quinean straitjacket: ontological commitment turns on how theories are (nearly enough) nailed (...) to the world. The specifics of how theories are applied indicates which among the posits of a theory are mere mathematical garb and which are genuine connections to items out there. In the first part of the book Azzouni undercuts the arguments, both actual and possible, in support of Quine’s criterion. An alternative criterion for what exists—ontological independence—is offered, one in sturdy accord with ordinary folk views on the matter. In the second part of the book, a beginning is made of bringing this alternative to bear upon scientific theories with a rich mathematical component. Along the way, old philosophical issues about absolute space and time versus relative space and time, the status of mathematical posits, such as spatial and temporal points, and so on, are illuminated. (shrink)

Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way, what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized but nonexistent objects that our scientific theories are often couched in terms of. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items-especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences-are indispensable. We cannot avoid talking about such things. Scientific and ordinary languages thus enable us to say things about Pegasus (...) or about hallucinated objects that are true, such as "Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse," or "That elf I'm now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes." Standard contemporary metaphysical views and semantic analyses of singular idioms on offer in contemporary philosophy of language have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all. That is, philosophers often feel driven to claim that such objects do exist, or they claim that all our talk isn't genuine truth-apt talk, but only pretence. This book reconfigures metaphysics in radical ways that allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial presupposition that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them. (shrink)

The assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. There are two forms of anthropocentrism, weak and strong, and weak anthropocentrism is adequate to support an environmental ethic. Environmental ethics is, however, distinctive vis-a-vis standard British and American ethical systems because, in order to be adequate, it must be nonindividualistic.Environmental ethics involves decisions on two levels, one kind of which differs from usual decisions affecting individual fairness while the other does not. The latter, called (...) allocational decisions, are not reducible to the former and govern the use of resources across extended time. Weak anthropocentrism provides a basis for criticizing individual, consumptive needs and can provide the basis for adjudicatingbetween these levels, thereby providing an adequate basis for environmental ethics without the questionable ontological commitments made by nonanthropocentrists in attributing intrinsie value to nature. (shrink)

The present research isolates the fairness assessment of the process used by the retailer to set a price, as well as the distributive fairness of the price compared to the price that others are offered, and examines the combined effect of procedural fairness and distributive fairness on overall price fairness. Two experimental studies examine procedural and distributive fairness effects on overall price fairness. In study 1, procedural fairness and distributive fairness are manipulated and found to interact to bring about overall (...) price fairness. In study 2, suspicion toward the seller is found to mediate the relationship between procedural fairness and overall price fairness when the price is disadvantageous. (shrink)

Our experience of objects is very rich. We perceive objects as possessing individuation conditions. This, however, is a projection of our senses and thinking. Azzouni shows the resulting austere metaphysics tames many ancient philosophical problems about constitution, as well as contemporary puzzles about reductionism.

If we must take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstract eternal invisible mathematical objects accessible only by the power of pure thought? Jody Azzouni says no, and he claims that the way to escape such commitments is to accept true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all. Azzouni illustrates what the metaphysical landscape looks like once we avoid a militant Realism which forces our commitment to (...) anything that our theories quantify. Escaping metaphysical straitjackets, while retaining the insight that some truths are about objects that do exist, Azzouni says that we can sort scientifically-given objects into two categories: ones which exist, and to which we forge instrumental access in order to learn their properties, and ones which do not, that is, which are made up in exactly the same sense that fictional objects are. He offers as a case study a small portion of Newtonian physics, and one result of his classification of its ontological commitments, is that it does not commit us to absolute space and time. (shrink)

Most philosophers of mathematics try to show either that the sort of knowledge mathematicians have is similar to the sort of knowledge specialists in the empirical sciences have or that the kind of knowledge mathematicians have, although apparently about objects such as numbers, sets, and so on, isn't really about those sorts of things as well. Jody Azzouni argues that mathematical knowledge really is a special kind of knowledge with its own special means of gathering evidence. He analyses the (...) linguistic pitfalls and misperceptions philosophers in this field are often prone to, and explores the misapplications of epistemic principles from the empirical sciences to the exact sciences. What emerges is a picture of mathematics both sensitive to mathematical practice, and to the ontological and epistemological issues that concern philosophers. (shrink)

The book illustrates how the human ability to adapt to the environment and interact with it can explain our linguistic representation of the world as constrained by our bodies and sensory perception. The different chapters discuss philosophical, scientific, and linguistic perspectives on embodiment and body perception, highlighting the core mechanisms humans employ to acquire knowledge of reality. These processes are based on sensory experience and interaction through communication.

When ordinary people - mathematicians among them - take something to follow from something else, they are exposing the backbone of our self-ascribed ability to reason. Jody Azzouni investigates the connection between that ordinary notion of consequence and the formal analogues invented by logicians. One claim of the book is that, despite our apparent intuitive grasp of consequence, we do not introspect rules by which we reason, nor do we grasp the scope and range of the domain, as it (...) were, of our reasoning. This point is illustrated with a close analysis of a paradigmatic case of ordinary reasoning: mathematical proof. (shrink)

Roots presents articles on major discoveries that laid the basis for contemporary molecular and cellular biology. In this article, Norton D. Zinder reviews the first findings about the single‐stranded DNA‐containing bacteriophages and what is known today about the genetics and molecular biology of these phages.

Claims to sisterhood are premised on women’s experiences with gender oppression, and many have argued that such claims ignore differences among women. Many have therefore dismissed sisterhood as a legitimate claim to solidarity, failing to examine the ways that sisterhood continues to be utilized by feminist activists. This article examines qualitative data from a study of a white, middle-class, feminist, antiracist organization that uses the language of sisterhood in its work on behalf of incarcerated women, who are predominantly of color (...) and poor. The author finds not only that sisterhood is simultaneously rooted in women’s experiences with oppression and pride and pleasure but that such language serves complex functions in feminist organizations that seek to work across difference. Beyond its use in creating and sustaining solidarity, sisterhood is utilized to bridge differences in race, class, and life experiences between women and to generate feelings of legitimacy amongst white, middle-class activists. (shrink)

What do the airplane, the escalator, the vacuum cleaner, and the Polaroid camera have in common? It took many, many attempts to perfect these inventions. But the people who invented them persevered and did not give up on their ideas. With TIME For Kids content, this nonfiction book will engage students in reading about inventions as they build their comprehension, vocabulary, and literacy skills. The Reader's Guide and culminating activity direct students back to the text as they develop their higher-order (...) thinking skills. Check It Out! provides resources for additional reading and learning. With text features such as a glossary, index, and table of contents, this book aligns with national and state standards and will keep students engaged in reading. (shrink)

Mathias Frisch has argued that the requirement that electromagnetic dispersion processes are causal adds empirical content not found in electrodynamic theory. I urge that this attempt to reconstitute a local principle of causality in physics fails. An independent principle is not needed to recover the results of dispersion theory. The use of ‘causality conditions’ proves to be the mere adding of causal labels to an already presumed fact. If instead one seeks a broader, independently formulated grounding for the conditions, that (...) grounding either fails or dissolves into vagueness and ambiguity, as has traditionally been the fate of candidate principles of causality. 1. Introduction2. Scattering in Classical Electrodynamics3. Sufficiency of the Physics4. Failure of the Principle of Causality Proposed 4.1. A sometimes principle4.2. The conditions of applicability are obscure4.3. Effects can come before their causes4.4. Vagueness of the relata and of the notion of causal process5. Conclusion. (shrink)

Jody Azzouni argues that we involuntarily experience certain physical items, certain products of human actions, and certain human actions themselves as having meaning-properties. We understand these items as possessing meaning or as having truth values. For example, a sign on a door reading "Drinks Inside" strikes native English speakers as referring to liquids in the room behind the door. The sign has a truth value--if no drinks are found in the room, the sign is misleading. Someone pointing in a (...) direction has the same effect: we experience her gesture as significant. Azzouni does not suggest that we don't recognize the expectations or intentions of speakers ; we do recognize that the person pointing in a certain direction intends for us to understand her gesture's significance. Nevertheless, Azzouni asserts that we experience that gesture as having significance independent of her intentions. The gesture is meaningful on its own. The same is true of language, both spoken and written. We experience the meanings of language artifacts as independent of their makers' intentions in the same way that we experience an object's shape as a property independent of the object's color. There is a distinctive phenomenology to the experience of understanding language, and Semantic Perception shows how this phenomenology can be brought to bear as evidence for and against competing theories of language. (shrink)

It is argued that the blind ascriptive role for the word true, its use, that is, in conjunction with descriptions of classes of sentences or with proper names of sentences (but not quote-names), is one which applies indiscriminately to sentences regardless of whether these are in languages we speak, can understand, or can translate into sentences that we do speak (and understand). Formal analogues of the ordinary word true as they arise in Tarskis seminal work, and in others, cannot replicate (...) this essential role of the ordinary word true. (shrink)